Mule In A Turf Club: The journey from License Raj to Reforms Raj

Unknown
Tuesday, 21 July 2015

By S.Narendra

(Former Information Adviser to PM, Principal
Information Officer to the Government, and Spokesperson)

Attempting to educate the government on its
need of a campaign on public affairs or behaviour change communication is
like expecting to train a mule to compete with race horses. When P.V.Narasimha
Rao government swept away the Licence-Raj, it baffled the political system, the
Congress party, business and industry, bureaucrats and ordinary people. In the
face of growing opposition to the new policies, the government continued its
routine, Delhi-centric English language ‘publicity. My efforts to change this
into public affairs mode was a trying experience. Read on…

When India
began opening up its economy in July 1991 for competition and
globalisation, there was joy in small circles and bewilderment in and
apprehensions in large sections, including the media. The bold economic reforms
drive by Prime Minister P.V.Narasimha Rao were
totally unexpected, was direly
needed for saving the nation but
politically heretical. Even as the official decisions like scrapping of
‘licence Raj’ governed by the Industrial Development Regulations Act, Directorate General of Technology Development
(that controlled import of foreign machinery and technology) and other such
measures, the government was not even aware that it needed strategic
communication support for persuading the
people, including businesses and industry. There were unbearable short term pains, especially
on the large sections of people already
disadvantaged and this section needed to be assured that the government under foreign
pressure was not going to abandon them
to market forces.

No one in government thought it necessary to brief the government
information and media system (DAVP,PIB, AIR, Doordarshan, Field Publicity and
others ) and make them part of the critical decision
making process, thus enabling them to lead a supportive communication campaign.
I used to joke that the government media are
hyenas of Lutyen’s jungle (North
–South Block, the Government of India buildings designed by Lutyen). In the
jungle, after the big cats have planned
and hunted the prey and eaten their
meal, hyenas and jackals are allowed to
clean up the carcass. In Lutyen’s jungle as well, the last act in
the decision making process was (and is, I hope not!) the pushing out of a
half-baked press release through the official media
system. Breaking into the company of cats and building communication process
into the decision making process was a big task.

Hilarious! The Government of V.P.Singh
(1989-90) was somewhat better in this respect. Thanks to the presence of pragmatic
P.Upendra as minister for Information & Broadcasting in the cabinet, he used
to take me to top level secret briefings given to the prime minister and his Finance
Minister Madhu Dandavate, Railway Minister George Fernandes by
learned economist- turned bureaucrat
Dr.Bimal Jalan. The latter had been recalled from IMF and was soon to
take over as the Finance Secretary from Gopi Arora. Jalan laid it bare before the PM the dire
financial situation and some urgently needed
remedies. I was entrusted with the job of creating a communication
plan for preparing the country to
receive the bad news and the desperate remedies that were to be expected be
administered.

It is another story that this far sighted
move to make communication as part of the official decision making process later
turned into hilarious joke. To complete
this side of the story, I gathered a team of
economists, economic journalists and other commentators and without
telling them the briefings I had received, I assigned them to provide brief,
jargon-free, write ups on technical themes like Inflation, BOP crisis, fiscal deficit, implications of subsidies, Disinvestment,
Exit policy or Labour Reforms, and others
that were to soon become media headlines, if and when the government were to
approach IMF/World Bank for loans known as
structural adjustment loans with
inevitable conditionalities (in today’s
terms, ‘austerity measures’, much hated by Greeks and Italians). They were sure
to become controversial media headlines, as before, when the Reforms were
rolling out. One had just flip through the newspapers of 1980 to understand the
political hackles that would be raised if India were to approach IMF/World Bank
for a bail out. Mrs Gandhi’s government in 1980, facing a severe balance of
payment crisis had negotiated a ‘structural adjustment loan’. The opposition
and media (led by Ram of the Hindu) had erupted against the loan, and the
consequential conditionalities imposed on India. This background was very
useful in identifying likely controversies in the event of the government
seeking IMF/World bank help.

Handy Apple! As I could not share the
secret with any one, I had to take home the office Apple classic desk top
computer for preparing the outline of a
public affairs campaign cutting across government and private media and
other political advocacy activities. Another complexity was that I had to approach individually and brief each person engaged to provide the write ups, to maintain utmost secrecy of
the mission . I served to them a cock-and-bull
story to explain why I needed such write ups.

The write ups received were useful as
background material but were very raw and jargon-ridden. Selecting a few critical
themes, I prepared sample briefs as FAQs to be used in media briefings, and
briefs for Advertising and public affairs campaign. Along with such write ups,
prepared a step-by-step note identifying tasks for each media unit and a
political communication plan to be undertaken by the leadership.

This note of mine was duly to Upendra who, in
turn, forwarded it to Madhu Dandavate.
Two months later, (after Madhu
Dandavate had presented a routine budget
ignoring the financial and economic rot)
I received a letter from a junior
under -secretary in the finance ministry that read : “please refer to
your discussions with the finance ministry etc and the note submitted . It is
decided that no further action need be taken. Please return all official papers
supplied to you.’ The Minister Upendra later told me that the finance minister
Madhu Dandavate had refused to bite the bullet, especially because the coalition partners (including BJP) were
not supportive of the much needed
reforms. I did not even imagine as to how useful this exercise of 1989 would be
when the actual reforms began rolling out in 1991.

Transformative Steps: The mounting
economic crisis, particularly the imminent financial bankruptcy, had forced
the Congress-supported Chandrashekkar
government to send India’s gold reserves abroad for borrowing money for
repaying interests on official debts.
The successor minority government in 1991 headed by Narasimha Rao, assumed to be a weak politician, began
its economic reforms with massive devaluation of the Indian Rupee, followed by the
dismantling of the Licence Raj, scrapping of the Industrial Development and
Regulation Act (IDRA ) and so on. The Congress party rank and file was baffled
by the government’s policies, as they were seen as a sudden reversal of Nehru-Gandhi
socialist policies of government’s control over the economy. The Left parties,
as expected, were campaigning against it. BJP was sitting on the fence,
selectively supporting and opposing reforms. BJP was also spreading fears about
globalisation of the Indian economy
(Swadeshi Jagran Manch was active then), as
anti-Swadeshi. There was the
prospect of India having to sign the global trade agreement creating the World Trade Organisation (WTO),
and a campaign was on to scuttle it. And
in Mumbai, Rahul Bajaj was leading the Bombay club that
was opposed to globalisation but in
favour of market orientation of only the domestic economy.

The union Cabinet itself was a divided house, yet the finance and
commerce ministries were wanting to hurtle India into open, globalised economy during the time when similar attempt
in the Soviet Union was failing. The
changing economy was badly in need of a mindset change through
political communication and dialogue but the government leadership did not seem
to have the time or inclination for it. What one noticed was the routine Delhi
-centric communication, that too mostly in English. No one cared to find
out how such English language,
especially technical expressions like
‘liberalisation’, economic reforms’, structural
adjustment’ were getting across in the Indian language media.

Anti-Reform Language Media: The most vocal
opponents of the reforms were the Indian language newspapers as well as some of
the English newspapers (especially outside of Delhi). Only the pink or business
newspapers were giving play to the reforms and supporting them but their
influence was limited. An analysis of the newspapers of late 1980s and early 1990s showed that
dailies were heavy with political news. Business stories rarely made it to the
front pages. An economic story gaining prominence related primarily to official
development plans, government announcements and public sector news. The stock
market news was tucked away in a separate section in the middle pages and
mostly it was the bare listing of stock prices, without any market analysis.

Yeh share-bazaarse Kya matlab hai?: The government broadcasters were not expected
to give space to private sector news, (private firms were not even named), and
stock market news was taboo. Even the news agencies had unwritten laws not to
name private sector companies. When
Doordarshan noted in its news
broadcast the steep plunge of stock market on account of news of militants seizing Lal
Chowk in Srinagar in 1991, the prime minister Chandrashekhar issued a stern warning to Doordarshan to avoid
broadcast of such news. He
angrily said ‘ Yeh share bazaar kya hota hai? Issse desh ka kya matlab hai’
(What’s this share market all about? How is it relevant to the country).
Neither AIR nor Doordarshan had an economic desk, nor a foreign news desk.

Advertising guidelines for official media
forbid them to accept sponsorships of items of conspicuous consumption and
luxury goods. The official TV and Radio were stipulated to avoid mention of the
names of private companies in their newscasts. If at all they took their names,
it was only in commercials.

Only the Press trust of India had a so-called
economic news desk and dealt mostly with government economic policies and
reports but was not known for insightful analysis. Business beat was unknown to language newspapers published
outside of Mumbai. Gujarati language had
the distinction of having one and only business daily, Vyapar. The Indian
private sector that wanted less government control on economic activities was
not making any effort to educate the media and
people about the benefits of the new policies. NESTLE was one company known to engage in
public affairs and bringing out publications highlighting its contribution
to the economic development of host
country through its operations but in
India it was lazy.

No free Flow of Financial News: International
wire agencies had to route their output through their Indian counter-parts.
Even brokers who trade on the quick flow of global financial information did
not have free access to such information. They had to get such information
provided by agencies specialised in financial news, like Reuters, AP-Dowjones and others, after
filtering by PTI. Whatever Indian news that was getting across to world media
was mostly negative. Ill-conceived government attempts to offer a positive
picture were drowned in more adverse
news.

In the first flush of reforms, Rao approved a
proposal for removing restrictions on the direct flow of financial news provided
by Reuters, AP-Dow Jones to brokers and investment firms. This move had caused
considerable resentment in Indian news agencies that had enjoyed a monopoly
until then. And, they were making huge money by acting as middle agents.

In the political and bureaucratic circles,
communication went by the word ‘publicity’ that was mostly practised as partisan
political information push, bordering on duplicity. As a result, official media
and communication had lost their credibility. While the political leaders
wasted money on ‘publicity’, bureaucrats who controlled the purse and watched
such waste, would allocate less and less funds for communication activates.

None
in government viewed communication as
an aide to policy making and facilitating implementation. And preparing the
ground for introducing new policy or for altering existing ones was out of question.

Political Communication Vacuum: The
political communication from the government party leadership was conspicuous by
its absence. The finance minister Dr.Manmohan Singh and Commerce minister
P.Chidambaram were in the fore front, speaking up for reforms but were busy in
addressing foreign audiences. Often,their
road shows to showcase India’s early reforms and their future course for
attracting FDI was causing problems back home. That was because what was sweet
music to foreign audiences, who were impatient with the pace of Indian reforms, was played up in Indian media as the brain
child of IMF/World Bank/American agenda – not in the national interest. At that
stage of political economy, the ideas like ‘disinvestment’, ‘downsizing of
government or firms’, ‘cuts in
subsidies’, ‘reduction of fiscal
deficit’, ‘ austerity’, ‘trade as against aid’, ‘exit policy’ or ‘labour laws
reforms’ and many such expressions
suited for a market –orienting economy
were ‘foreign’ and anathema to Indian media audiences. The utterance of
such expressions by these two key
ministers had made the government leadership to be perceived as two-faced and
deceitful. Political opposition was using such utterances as surrender of India’s
sovereignty.

Glasnost
& Perestroika: The 1990s had begun with
unexpected and unprecedented changes in international political and economic
order, engineered by Gorbachev of Soviet Union. Unfamiliar words like ‘glasnost’
and ‘perestroika’ began to circulate around the globe. But such words had
difficulty in penetrating the closed Indian media system and reaching the
political leadership and senior administrators. I started gathering information
about such changes sweeping hard –core communist countries from Albania to
Indo-China countries by sourcing information from the Economist, International Herald
Tribune and Times- London that used to reach India late. I was on the mailing list
of the US embassy that used to compile daily –‘World Press Review’, an
excellent digest of happenings around the world. Another invaluable source was
the daily digest of broadcasts by radio stations around the world prepared by the
monitoring division of AIR. By culling stories of political and economic
changes in closed economies, I began preparing a digest titled ‘perestroika-here
and there’ and this was sent to select political leaders and bureaucrats. In
order to test readership of this digest, I used to cut a few names from the
mailing list. This had the desired effect and my office would get calls from
officials who had not received the digest. A few senior journalists who came
across this digest and wanted the copies as well.

TV Spots out: In January 1992, I (in my
capacity as DG, DAVP), was asked to make a presentation to the PM on the steps taken
by I&B ministry for explaining the
reforms. Risking rebuff, during this presentation I submitted to Rao that communication
only through the government media can never politically succeed without the
party’s political communication. The great man readily appreciated the point
and said: ‘I need the official media to work more because I don’t have
political communicators’. The I & B minister, his deputy and the secretary
had taken leave of absence and did not turn up for this meeting. K.Varadan, a
new additional secretary in the ministry, represented the ministry and it was
left to me to account for what I had done on behalf of DAVP but also chart out
a course for what needs to be done by the government and the party. I brought to the prime minister’s attention that a detailed
plan (A Marketing Plan for Economic
Reforms in India and Abroad) submitted
to the Steering committee headed by the principal secretary to PM, A.N.Verma, was not getting financial and
political support.

A series of spots for explaining the new
policies and their effects on different sections of people, after going through
the tortuous process of approval by the ministries of Industry and Finance (I
had been assured that Dr. Manmohan Singh had seen and approved them) were not
allowed to be screened, because the
communist parties objected to their
screening. Rao directed Verma then and there to clear the campaign.

I also brought to the PM’s notice that the
speeches made abroad by the Finance
Minister and Commerce Minister and using expressions like ‘exit policy’
‘disinvestment ‘ were causing disquiet in Indian media. I had prepared a list of
such expressions that should not be used.

The newspapers run by the Left parties would carry
advertisements on reforms and run commentaries criticising the reforms along
side. I struck them off our media list
but I was not politically supported, although my stand as an advertiser was
wholly in the government interest.

My friend and one of the doyens of Indian
advertising, R.K.Swamy, and myself collaborated in putting together a paper on the
necessity of the government engaging an international PR agency for
communicating the new policies abroad. During a visit to Japan, in Apirl 1992,
the founder chairman of Sony, Akio Morita,
met the PM and had asked; “Mr Prime
Minister, is it true that foreign firms
like us can now invest in India?” This
was ten months after India had opened
up its economy and government ministers were travelling abroad to canvass for
FDI. R.K.Swamy had tied up with the
well-known PR form Hill and Knowlton and had offered their services for FDI-related
PR. But this paper did not evoke any response.

Official Media Turf Wars: The
biggest hurdle that I faced was to make the then powerful official media change
gears from their conventional publicity mode towards a public affairs mode.
Doordarshan and AIR in their news and programming were doing a great job
statistically matching their record of the emergency between 1975-77. Inputs
offered for making their programme impactful were rejected as interference.
Their political masters were satisfied with statistical results and were not
open to make their programmes candid and credible.

The year 1992-94 was also the period when
some media houses like India Today and others were experimenting with Video
News Magazines and some of them began to send to Hong Kong
and Singapore their video cassette for uplink
from foreign satellites and broadcast to
India. But such Video News Magazines were heavy with political news and
entertainment news. An attempt was made to penetrate such news magazines with
economic reform news.

The Author
sunarendra@gmail.com

https//spokesperson blgospot.com

When the PM saw the conclusions of this
3-level ‘impressionistic study’, he was
much dismayed. For us, the Karnataka consultations had yielded valuable
insights and inputs for dealing with this deficit at communication and
political level.

The Campaign: The foregone discussions
offer a summary of the hurdles to be crossed for initiating a comprehensive
public affairs campaign. An agency can conceive and recommend but the client
has to totally buy into the philosophy, goals and objectives and the plan of
action of the campaign. In the case of DAVP, it had to think both as the client
and the agency. In addition, the client, the government was not one but
multiple entities each guarding its own turf zealously. The Steering committee,
headed by the principal secretary, on paper was supposed to be an overarching
body for overseeing reforms roll out but it also had to work through various
departments and ministers that was a very slow process.(To be continued).